The Soil We Need to Grow
Written for QLFC Season 9, Round 7
Team: Wimbourne Wasps
Position: Chaser 1
Reserve: No
Prompts: Herbology Incident
1) (character) Neville Longbottom
2) (object) flower pot
3) (quote) "You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it." — Maya Angelou
Word Count:1.527
BANG!
With a shriek, Rose Weasley dove behind one of the raised flower beds lining the greenhouse. Like all the other flower beds and tables in the brightly lit Herbology classroom, it was already covered in clay shards, soil and green shreds of what had formerly been the sapling of a Wiggentree.
On the central table the culprit causing this commotion was currently in the process of wrapping its slashing tentacles around the garden shears lying dangerously close to it. Rose's face lost all its colour as the raging Venomous Tentacula managed to hoist it up and flung it in the rough direction she was hiding in.
As the shears were soaring through the air, the door to the greenhouse suddenly opened and a tall man in a soil covered cardigan strode in, several boxes of seeds balanced on his arms. His eyebrows rose in astonishment at the havoc that had been wreaked in his classroom.
"Get down!" Rose managed to scream just in time for Professor Longbottom to duck and evade the deadly projectile.
He dropped his boxes and jumped behind the flower bed she had been cowering behind. Rose winced as another flower pot crashed against the wood shielding them.
"What in Merlin's name has happened here?" Neville asked in a mix of astonishment and exasperation. "When you said you wanted to experiment on the Venomous Tentacula, I thought you had something like testing fertiliser in mind."
He carefully glanced over the edge of the table and waited for a moment until the rogue plant had turned its attention to the helpless sapling again. He quickly drew his wand and with a practised flick of his wrist, the Venomous Tentacula froze, dropped the branch it was currently munching on and then faltered in on itself.
With a sigh of relief, Neville stood up and extended a hand to help Rose to her feet. She brushed off the dirt from her clothes and contritely took in the messed up greenhouse.
"I wanted to make it stronger and more resilient," she mumbled, "so I added a Fortifying Potion to the watering can. I wouldn't have thought it would get quite so fortified," she added unhappily, wringing her hands. "I'm really sorry, Professor Longbottom, please don't take any House points from me."
Neville had listened to her without interrupting; it was palpable that this project was important to the daughter of his closest friends, and that she was devastated at its outcome.
"Don't worry," he reassured the distressed girl gently. "I know how it feels to experience setbacks like this."
Rose looked at him astonishedly. "You do?"
Neville nodded in confirmation. "When I was your age, I tried to tweak Valerian plants to reverse their properties."
"Why would you do that?"
"Do you know which potion Valerian is used for?" Neville asked in return instead of an answer.
Rose thought about it for a moment, raking her memory for the according information. "Um, a Forgetfulness Potion, I think?" It was more of a question than a statement.
"Exactly," Neville confirmed. "I was terribly forgetful when I was your age. My grandmother even got me a Remembrall in my first year," he laughed quietly, his face softening from reliving fond memories, "but alas, I regularly forgot where I put it."
Rose watched Neville silently; she had a feeling that this wasn't the only reason the man she had to call Professor at school and Neville when he was visiting her family home had undertaken such an effort as a student. "Was that the only reason, Professor?"
Neville's face grew serious. "I assume your parents have told you about my family, haven't they?"
Feeling sorry for bringing up such a personal topic, Rose's eyes dropped to the ground. "I didn't mean to make you think about something so awful, Professor; I'm sorry," she evaded his question sheepishly.
"It's alright," Neville answered. "See, the minds of my parents were shattered when they fought for what they believed in. While they still somehow knew who I was, the Healers told me they didn't fully remember me. But them remembering was all that I wanted back then, more than anything else. So I started looking for a way to help them. It was what drove me."
His eyes were twinkling as he looked her up and down. "What is driving you, Rose Weasley?"
Rose shuffled her feet and wrung her hands. She knew Neville was friends with her mother and telling him about her motivation almost felt like telling her mother herself.
"Everyone always tells me how smart my mum is," she finally admitted. "Brightest witch of her age, brain of the Golden Trio, Minister of Magic at such a young age. I want to make her proud. I thought by creating something totally new, something no one had ever done before, I could do that; show the world I have some brains on me as well. But no matter what I do, it never really works, something always goes wrong. It's so frustrating!" The words spilled out of her in a quick succession, as if she had wanted to tell someone for a long time.
"I was feeling just as frustrated as you do now," Neville answered after listening to her words. "But Professor Sprout, who was teaching Herbology when your parents and I were at school, shared one of her personal wisdoms with me when she saw my discouragement."
He reached for one of the few flower pots that wasn't lying in shambles to their feet and held it up for her to see. "See this flower pot? It is empty now, just a vessel ready to be filled with whatever you wish. What would you put in there?"
Rose fought not to raise her eyebrows doubtfully; she wasn't quite sure if a philosophical lecture on flower pots was what she needed right now.
"I'd put a plant in there, I guess," she shrugged, having no idea where this was leading.
Neville did as she suggested and put a sapling into the empty pot; without anything to support it, it immediately slumped to the side and fell to the bottom.
"What do you think is missing?" he asked her with a patient smile.
"You forgot the soil," Rose answered. "Without soil the pot is too big."
Neville's eyes sparkled. "Exactly; like your endeavour to create something on your own to make your mother proud, this pot seems too big for a small sapling like this; without sustenance, it cannot grow."
He grabbed a shovel and started adding loadful after loadful of the rich, dark soil he kept in sacks underneath the working tables, slowly filling the pot up with it.
"However, if you keep trying and trying and learn from your past mistakes, you can build a base for your wish to grow upon. Your failures are like the soil a plant needs to grow from a sapling into a flower; if you don't let yourself get discouraged by them, they can be the foundation of your success."
Neville gently set the sapling upright in the now filled flower pot and pressed down on the soil with his fingertips. Rose watched him quietly, letting his words sink in; she'd never felt anything but frustration at her own failed experiments before.
"But you didn't succeed with your Valerian, did you?" she said after some time.
Neville didn't look up from his flower pot. "No, I didn't"
She grimaced. "Then what was the purpose? All the effort was in vain. There was no flower growing from it."
To her surprise, Neville laughed and shook his head. "I didn't accomplish what I was trying to do, but I wouldn't say it was in vain either."
He held up his dirty hands for her to see. "While I was trying to find a solution for what was driving me, I discovered other things; my love of Herbology, for example; the inner peace working with plants gives me; and that the direct way doesn't always lead you where you need to go."
Satisfied with his work, he straightened himself up and brushed the soil from his hands. With an encouraging smile, he pushed the pot with the small green sapling towards her; surrounded by the massive heaps of dark earth, it was looking a bit lost.
"I said I wouldn't deduct any House points from you for wrecking my classroom," Neville said sternly, but Rose could see the laughter shining in his eyes. "But as compensation, you will take care of this little friend here for me. I expect to see a full grown beauty by the end of the year."
He took out his wand again and turned from her as he started to repair the damage her Venomous Tentacula had done to his work materials. Out of the corner of his eyes, he could see Rose tentatively grabbing the flower pot.
"Thank you, Neville," she mumbled, the more familiar use of his first name not escaping him.
"You're welcome, little Rose," he smiled over his shoulder. "I believe in you. If anyone can grow a flower your mother would be proud of, it's you."